If any additional argument was needed to show the disastrous effect of the anti-professional rule on our athletics, a decisive one has been given in the loss of both the Yale game and the Amherst game through Harvard's weakness at the bat. Our play in the field in both these games was all that could have been wished for; but it is folly to expect the nine to win games without being able to bat, and it is equal folly to expect a nine to be able to bat without any practice. Our nine enters the championship contest this year heavily handicapped from lack of practice in batting good pitchers. This practice has been acquired in previous years either by playing professional nines or by being under a professional coach through the winter. Every other college nine has had the benefit of one or both these methods of practice this year; but Harvard has been forbidden to use either. Consequently, in beginning the college games, we find ourselves confronted with pitchers a great deal better than any we have batted before. The result is defeat. Undoubtedly if the championship series were long enough we should in time learn to bat effectively but the series consists of only eight games, and in all probability by the time we shall have become able to do any batting the season will be at an end. In the meantime, while we have been getting the practice the other colleges will have been getting the games.

Of course it is now too late in the season for any change in the rule against professionals to have any effect on our chances for this year; but it is essential for the success of the nine next year and for coming years that the rule should be repealed. And the sooner it is repealed the better; for the nine needs some encouragement to believe that it will not have to enter next year's contest handicapped as it is this.